


These Hearts Adore

by releasetheglitch



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond - All Media Types, Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Christmas, Domestic, Fluff, M/M, Sorry Not Sorry, Unrealistically and Disgustingly Fluffy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-25
Updated: 2014-12-25
Packaged: 2018-03-03 12:18:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2850605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/releasetheglitch/pseuds/releasetheglitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Christmas morning with James and Q.</p>
            </blockquote>





	These Hearts Adore

**Author's Note:**

> This is stupidly and nauseatingly fluffy and I'm utterly unrepentant. Happy Holidays everybody!

James Bond,  trained killer for Her Majesty's Secret Service, wakes up cuddled around a pillow and for a brief moment experiences a flash of confusion.

 

At some point during the night, Q had rolled away from him. He can barely see Q's mess of dark, fluffy hair under the thick duvet the man had insisted they buy. White and puffy, nearly twice the size of their already massive bed and the thickness of several pillows, sometimes James woke up and in that seam between sleep and consciousness, believed he was floating on a cloud. It was a bloody nuisance sometimes, especially when Q dropped his tablet in the blankets and got lost trying to extricate it. But in the dusty light of morning, when the bedroom still dripped with the intimacy of shadows, he thinks he's a little in love with the home that they've built. Duvet included.

 

His body feels oddly bereft without Q's heartbeat keeping time beside his own. And maybe he's getting old, old and foolish and sentimental, but it doesn't stop him from reaching across the scant centimetres between them and gathering Q's sleep-pliant body up to press against him. Q's a heavy sleeper and doesn't stir except to twitch his nose, rabbit-like. James envies him, sometimes. The luxury of being able to pass out without worrying whether they'll wake again the next day is one most people take for granted. But it's endearing: the ribbons of innocence Q has managed to retain despite his career. James wants to help him keep all of them safe.

 

Q, to James' amusement, is not an attractive sleeper. He drools and his face scrunches up in impossible ways. His feet are too cold and the rest of his body too warm and his fingers dig into James' side when he curls Q into the crater of his own body. Despite all of this, when James breathes it burns under the weight of the love he holds for this ridiculous, perfect man.

 

Years ago, when this thing between them was still fragile-winged and jelly-limbed in its newness, James would wake up and see Q lying there and be paralyzed with fear. Not for fear of commitment—by that point he was already all in and would happily let Q break his heart without any regret. Nor was it fear of dying, or fear of Q dying, although nightmares of both scenarios still plagued him frequently. No, he'd see Q and think, _I could never love you any more than I do in this moment. This is it. Everything that comes after will pale in comparison to how I feel right now._ Except it didn't. If anything, his love for the man only grew with time, and he grew to accept it.

 

"You think too loud." Q is awake, voice scratchy with sleep and childlike, losing much of its prep school poshness to night-sanded vowels. His eyes are green slits, keeping as much light out as possible and he's half-blind without his spectacles but when they fix upon James they still turn liquid with adoration.

 

James doesn't think he deserves to be looked at like that. But he'll take it anyway. He'll take whatever Q has to offer.

 

"Just thinking about how gorgeous you are, love."

 

Q scoffs, but his features are soft and his cheeks glowing. "...flatterer," he mumbles after a minute.

 

_It's not flattery when it's the truth_ , James wants to say, but that'd be too much sentiment released too early into the stillness of the morning, so he just smiles down at Q.

 

Q rolls onto him, bony limbs sprawling on top of his own in casual possessiveness, and James chuckles. Leans down to kiss at the plush warmth of his mouth.

 

"Bond! Morning breath!" comes the petulant whine, but Q is smiling too, those pink lips curled lopsidedly in relaxed happiness. Their faces are so close together that James can feel Q's eyelashes fluttering against his cheek.

 

"It's snowing again," he notices, and Q lifts his head to stare out the window. Tucks an arm under James' torso as if attempting to steal his body heat. His cheeks flush with excitement as he sees the fat flakes of white tumbling over each other outside.

 

"A white Christmas."

 

They fall silent then, James tracing absent patterns across Q's lower back as he listens to his lover's quiet breaths. Q snuggles into him, drawing the duvet up until he's once again buried under mounds of white. His toes warm up slowly where they're pressed up against muscular thighs and James can feel them wiggling with contentment. Somewhere in the flat, Q's morning holiday mix turns itself on and the grainy notes of "Let It Snow" fill the air. Q hums along softly when the chorus plays and James can feel his ribs vibrate with the music. He snorts. No matter how many times Q listens to these tracks, he never bothers to learn any of the lyrics besides the choruses.

 

Mornings like this, it was all too easy to pretend that James didn't have a Walther hidden in the nightstand, or that Q's phone wasn't equipped with a program that would alert him if anyone was approaching their flat. They could be civilians enjoying a morning in together, the peace unthreatened by the ever present possibility of a call from MI6.

 

But then, they'd lose whatever it is that makes them 007 and Q.

 

They won't get up until the light's seeped fully across the floorboards so Q's toes won't curl up with cold when he sets them to the ground. But they will get up, eventually. There are presents to open (a Polaroid camera for James and several new cardigans in appalling colours for Q) and long kisses in front of the fireplace to be shared. They have to make sure Q's bloody cat didn't get into the tree and knock down all the ornaments again. And later that night, Alec might even come for dinner, although it's just as likely that he'll be passed out with the bottle of good vodka James sent him for Christmas.

 

For now, James has his ridiculous, overfluffed bed and his ridiculous, beloved quartermaster. And that's the only Christmas gift he needs.

 


End file.
